Malaya What If

[Ltlconf]

I agree with your premise that Yamashita could receive resupply. But that is not as assured as one might think. The whole series of Japanese offensives are based on a shaky premise. They were borrowing from a lot of buckets to partially fill even more buckets. Buckets some times spring leaks just before the bottom falls out. It will be difficult to refill much less replace their buckets. That the Japanese pulled it off, is to their credit.

The Japanese allies in Germany and Italy are hard pressed as well, bucket wise. Can the British pull it off in their other theatres is the question. The British and Americans can afford to lose buckets. The lost buckets will not be replaced. Instead, they will receive barrels, followed by storage tanks and eventually reservoirs. This is the historical occurrence.

Don't book passage aboard the Queen Mary just yet. The cadre which Fatboy Coxy is developing can be categorized as "Right Place, but Wrong Time" as opposed the "Has-Beens or Never Were/Will Be". Their PM is the wild card.

The RN is now appearing to rehearse what is known as the "War Patrol". It appears that the (R)ainbow class submarines remained on station with China or East Indies instead of transiting to The Med. If the reports are correct, the RN is transiting onto a wartime footing now rather than waiting to do so later..

My conclusion is that ADM Hart was the one senior US officer in the Pacific, with a sensible grasp of ongoing events. I think that a most revealing event occurs when the War Dept. plucks a permanent Major General out of retirement, gives him back a star and command over an active duty four star Admiral. The War Department apparently ascribes to the "Fixed Batteries uber alles" adages of yesteryear.

Having said good things about ADM Hart, I have to go against the historical trend about GEN. Percival. He's a competent Sr. Staff officer. He's not a field commander. I think that field commander is coming in from East Africa. Now that his senior, Gen. Heath is off the peninsula list by direction of the PM. things will get set right.

Oh, I don't disagree with any of this, I just think that the IJA will sacrifice or freeze other fronts to concentrate on Malaya and the East Indies as they were considered the real prizes. Utterly vital. After all, the oil was the point and Singapore was the choke point for that oil. Though yeah, they're going to have to shuffle a lot of decks to make it happen and it's going to be a bit of a race as the Allies build up elsewhere.
Worse, I'm thinking in the long term it'll cost the IJA and IJN resources that'll bring about that reckoning Yamamoto predicted that much quicker. And for the Allies while it'll hurt short term, you're right, long term it's no big pain, if embarrassing short term. They KNOW they'll be back.

Agree on Percival. As I research on this campaign, he seemed to have come up with a solid defense plan for Malaya before the war, one that would've worked given proper resources and leadership. He seemed a solid staff officer with a excellent brain. What is needed is a pragmatic officer whose a quick thinker, aggressive, adaptive, hard driving, willing to train the men hard, and not put up with Colonial Office stupidity and it seems we may have gotten at that, or at least something close. Even halfway there is a massive improvement!

 

[Driftless]

Even if this Universe' British better prep throws some form of wrench into Japanese plans, the Allied war economys are still far from spamming out planes, ships.and trained warriors. That's still out into '43/'44 yet, correct? So, even if '42 looks more promising than OTL, '42 is still going to be mostly containment, IMO.

 

[Ltlconf]

And the British won't? There is a very definite limit to what the Japanese can deploy and supply ( 1 railway and two small ports mean 3 divisions in the field max ) , simply put if the Japanese don't win quick they get ground down ( as long as Singapore is active , subs will be wrecking havoc on shipping and reinforcements keep coming) and pushed back.

The land battle will likely stalemate, I agree. Though we can't discount the outstanding small unit performance of the Japanese that tended to run rings around the British, that's been mitigated to a degree thanks to the ATL leadership instigating more realistic and intense training. The Japanese, however, are still simply far more experienced and even more intensely trained. No getting around that. And their aggression is proverbial, that can't be exaggerated, leading to the Japanese often, historically, getting inside the British decision loop simply by reacting so quickly to any opportunity presented.
This was aggravated by the piss-poor C&C system the British had OTL. Again both of these have been largely fixed, but not completely, the British are still going to have a methodical style of command, but this time they're less likely to panic or fly to pieces, having solid C&C systems in place as well as SOP in place. Not to mention the Brits this time realize the jungle is passable!
But this is only one feature of the campaign. You also have the naval and air campaigns, and here the Japanese have a massive quantitative and qualitative advantage, especially at sea. In the air, with Park bringing in modern tactics, C&C methods, intense training, discipline, and the arrival of larger numbers of more modern aircraft the battle isn't as one sided. Frankly, even the Buffalo maybe isn't the turd it's made out to be if flown properly I think. The Finns got good work out of it, it's faster and has better climb than the Wildcat or Boomerang (both which held their own once flown with proper tactical smarts), and dives better than the Japanese aircraft, so there's hope. The Hurricane is tough as hell and heavily armed, and if the P40 Warhawk shot down IJA fighters and bombers in droves with the right tactics, I think Park's boys can do the same.
The problem, however, will be attrition....
In the end, the Japanese will be trying to cut off Singapore and East Indies from resupply, as well as attriting the resources the Allies have at hand. The Allies will already be heavily outnumbered and at the end of a long logistics chain while Japan has theirs closer, having built up at Taiwan and Indochina.
Then there's the IJN. It's a beast. Well trained, modern, battle tested for just this sort of fight, and likely the best navy in the world man for man afloat at that moment...though I agree the British Mediterranean Fleet under Cunningham easily rivals it. Worse, these are their home waters so to speak, so numerically they dominate and overwhelmingly so.
True, they're a glass cannon, and know it (the IJN is VERY well aware of its weakness), as well of it's lack of fleet train assets (again, painfully aware), but this makes them all the more aggressive early on as they KNOW they're on the clock. They're eager to get this fight over and done with with fast, so they can turn their assets west and north to deal with the expected American counterstrike. This means, yes, they'll juggle what they have to to make it happen.
I WILL agree, however, the more balls they put in the air (or leaky buckets they put into this, to use your analogy), the more likely the whole Japanese plan begins to unravel all the quicker and at greater cost.

 

[Ltlconf]

While the Allies were indeed spamming equipment and vehicles in '42 and '43, at least in comparison to the Axis, the issue was in trained personnel to man and use it. They had people in uniform, mind you, but they were often painfully green however.

 

[Rickshaw]

While the Allies were indeed spamming equipment and vehicles in '42 and '43, at least in comparison to the Axis, the issue was in trained personnel to man and use it. They had people in uniform, mind you, but they were often painfully green however.

Here we touch upon the real difference between the Japanese and the Allies. The Japanese had a finite resource pool of trained manpower, the Allies are vastly superior sized one in comparison. The Japanese tended to have a rigid training system, believing if everything else failed, the Banzai charge would succeed. To the Allies, they always had to be able to resort to more men, more artillery, more tanks, to the Japanese they could use all their men in a final charge to overwhelm their enemy. They had spirit which the Allies lacked. Of course, the Allies also had spirit but the Japanese had more, supposedly. In reality, it rarely worked.

 

[Ltlconf]

Agreed, the charge was a last resort, but in reality the Japanese tactically were quite flexible at the unit level, going for pinning the enemy at a point then going for aggressive (in the sense of pushing forward fast and with high initiative) infiltration of gaps and flanking maneuvers. This paid high dividends in OTL's Malaya and Burma Campaigns thanks to the narrow fronts and tendency of the British C&C system to react poorly. The real problem came later when the forces had to coordinate on a large scale. The Japanese Army had same problem as the Navy: Overly complex plans requiring precise timing and coordination. Worse, the officers would carry on with their part of the plan even after it was obvious things had gone completely pear shaped. A little thing like a fuck up in planning was no excuse to retreat!
Genuine Banzai charges were done only when everything else was tried, the forces were cornered, and all hope of victory was lost. What many THINK are Banzai charges are actually frontal assaults with artillery and heavy machine gun support, but as the Japanese had missed out on the Western Front and firmly believed if you did it at night(always did), coordinated it properly (rarely pulled off), and infiltrated close enough before launching the assault (which they always did try) it had a good chance of success. Further, the assault was to be followed by reinforcements through the breach created (rarely achieved).
Now, in Guadalcanal, the Marine DID have their lines busted open several times, and Henderson Field reached at least once, but the Japanese again absolutely SUCKED at coordinating these assaults and the reinforcements that would've made this a success never arrived, the troops surrounded, and wiped out. Which is typical...as the poor bastards would discover again and again. The only time the Japanese coordinated anything well on Guadalcanal was their withdrawal...it was masterful. Seriously, it was!

In short, at up to company level the Japanese can actually be quite dangerous in a fight, and often were. But from above this they tend to get overly complex and/overly aggressive though this can serve them well if they've got decent leadership, which it seems they did in Malaya and Burma. Or you'll get the occasional nutcase that does indeed have complete faith in the Yamato Spirit and utter contempt for non-Japanese and just charges right on in (see Alligator Creek). But in reality they're kinda rare...aaaand the war ensured nature took its course

 

[Rickshaw]

Agreed, the charge was a last resort, but in reality the Japanese tactically were quite flexible at the unit level, going for pinning the enemy at a point then going for aggressive (in the sense of pushing forward fast and with high initiative) infiltration of gaps and flanking maneuvers. This paid high dividends in OTL's Malaya and Burma Campaigns thanks to the narrow fronts and tendency of the British C&C system to react poorly. The real problem came later when the Male had to coordinate on a large scale. The Japanese Army had same problem as the Navy: Overly complex plans requiring precise timing and coordination. Worse, the officers would carry on with their part of the plan even after it was obvious things had gone completely pear shaped. A little thing like a fuck up in planning was no excuse to retreat!
Genuine Banzai charges were done only when everything else was tried, the forces were cornered, and all hope of victory was lost. What many THINK are Banzai charges are actually frontal assaults with artillery and heavy machine gun support, but as the Japanese had missed out on the Western Front and firmly believed if you did it at night(always did), coordinated it properly (rarely pulled off), and infiltrated close enough before launching the assault (which they always did try) it had a good chance of success. Further, the assault was to be followed by reinforcements through the breach created (rarely achieved).
Now, in Guadalcanal, the Marine DID have their lines busted open several times, and Henderson Field reached at least once, but the Japanese again absolutely SUCKED at coordinating these assaults and the reinforcements that would've made this a success never arrived, the troops surrounded, and wiped out. Which is typical...as the poor bastards would discover again and again. The only time the Japanese coordinated anything well on Guadalcanal was their withdrawal...it was masterful. Seriously, it was!

In short, at up to company level the Japanese can actually be quite dangerous in a fight, and often were. But from above this they tend to get overly complex and/overly aggressive though this can serve them well if they've got decent leadership, which it seems they did in Malaya and Burma. Or you'll get the occasional nutcase that does indeed have complete faith in the Yamato Spirit and utter contempt for non-Japanese and just charges right on in (see Alligator Creek). But in reality they're kinda rare...aaaand the war ensured nature took its course

To counter that we had the Owen Stanleys campaign, the Battle of the Bridgehead, the Shaggy Ridge and Lae battles in New Guinea. Then you have the various defensive (from the Japanese viewpoint) battles of the island hopping campaign conducted by the USMC. In virtually all of them, the Japanese pushed forward until their supplies ran out and then when on the defensive conducted the last ditch response - the Banzai charge. Indeed the Owen Stanleys itself was based on a lie that the Japanese told themselves that it was possible to supply their forces as they crossed the Owen Stanleys with insufficient native porters to supply them. The result was a starving army forced to conduct a retreat when their supplies ran out back to the Bridgeheads on the north coast, pursued at a leisurely pace by Australian soldiery following them up.

 

[Merrick]

My conclusion is that ADM Hart was the one senior US officer in the Pacific, with a sensible grasp of ongoing events. I think that a most revealing event occurs when the War Dept. plucks a permanent Major General out of retirement, gives him back a star and command over an active duty four star Admiral. The War Department apparently ascribes to the "Fixed Batteries uber alles" adages of yesteryear.

US pre-planning in the Philippines had a lot in common (OTL and probably TTL) had a lot in common with British pre-war planning in Malaya/Singapore OTL. While Hart was a 4-star Admiral, the Asiatic "Fleet" was in no sense a 4-star Admiral's command. At the outbreak of war it had a sizable modern submarine force, but surface forces comprised exactly one modern heavy cruiser, with one elderly light cruiser and a dozen WW1-era destroyers. It was a tripwire force, designed to make a gesture.

So the Philippines ended up with the Singapore situation of a Fleet base with no fleet, theoretically defended by the Air Force (if they had time to send any planes) whose bases needed to be defended by the Army (who had no troops to send and were padding their strength out with grass-green colonial battalions). Meanwhile back in Washington, the Navy considered the place indefensible and was trying to avoid allocating assets to it, the Army was keen to claim the responsibility (and budget) of defence from the Navy, the USAAF was telling everyone that with 3 squadrons of B-17s they'd sweep the IJN from the seas, the State Department was insisting that the US couldn't be seen to abandon the Philippines, the Philippine Government (who'd been promise independence within the decade) were keen to make defence a domestic responsibility and the US Congress was refusing to fund anything until it was far too late. Throw in good ol' Doug MacArthur and the Roosevelt administration trying to walk the line between appearing weak and provoking an incident and its not surprising that they ended up as organised as a sack of squirrels.

 

[Belisarius II]

While the Allies were indeed spamming equipment and vehicles in '42 and '43, at least in comparison to the Axis, the issue was in trained personnel to man and use it. They had people in uniform, mind you, but they were often painfully green however.

And in 1942 the Allies lacked the basic doctrine to defeat the Japanese in Jungle Warfare. It wasn't until 1944 that the British forces in Burma could outfight the Japanese.

 

[HMS St.Lawrence]

As long as the Battles avoid encounters with enemy fighters, I really think they will be useful assets. The Allies had no aircraft designated for close air support OTL and their presence here will be felt by the Japaneses.
Not to mention that the Battle was -in Fairey's greatest tradition- a slow but sturdy aircraft that the Oscars and Nates only two machineguns might have a hard time bring down.

Then there's also the question of Japanese fighter cover for the invasion. OTL the quick fall of Kota Bahru airfield gave the Japanese an early base on the peninsula from where they could operate. If the Japaneses are denied northern airfields for longer, this will leave them exposed for a time since Indochina is too far away for fighter operations. Will the invasion plans stay similar to OTL or is the British buildup going to trigger a reaction in Japan. Maybe a light carrier could be sent south to help with the initial landings pending the capture of a suitable airfield, like in the Philippines? Would the IJN accept to help the IJA? Then again, is there a carrier that could be spared for such an operation?
Very interesting stuff!

 

[Belisarius II]

My HS history teacher served in the US Army during this war. He told the story of a conversation he had with a Wehrmacht officer. My teacher served as an escort for Axis
POW's They guarded them in rail transit to Southern US POW camps.

My teacher, full of young oats, asked the officer dismissively, "If you are so superior, how did we capture you?" The German officer replied matter of fact. He was an anti-tank
battery officer. His unit was placed in a mountain pass. The American forces would send a tank forward. The Germans would destroy the tank. This started in the early morning. It would continue most of the day. Finally, the Germans were out of ammunition, but the Americans had not run out of tanks. So the Wehrmacht officer and men were captured by the Americans. Better logistics wins out over better tactics in this style of war.

Sometimes it depends upon the quality of spirit. Hive vs. Individuals? We observe the actions of others through the prism of our community? Dunno.

I hear that type of excuse about the Germans all the time. The problem is if that was true the Americans would've run out of tanks before the Germans ran out of ammo. I understand of course the Allies had massive material superiority, but the nonsense about needing 5 tanks to take out every German tank is just silly.

 

[Ltlconf]

Nope.

To counter that we had the Owen Stanleys campaign, the Battle of the Bridgehead, the Shaggy Ridge and Lae battles in New Guinea. Then you have the various defensive (from the Japanese viewpoint) battles of the island hopping campaign conducted by the USMC. In virtually all of them, the Japanese pushed forward until their supplies ran out and then when on the defensive conducted the last ditch response - the Banzai charge. Indeed the Owen Stanleys itself was based on a lie that the Japanese told themselves that it was possible to supply their forces as they crossed the Owen Stanleys with insufficient native porters to supply them. The result was a starving army forced to conduct a retreat when their supplies ran out back to the Bridgeheads on the north coast, pursued at a leisurely pace by Australian soldiery following them up.

Actually that pretty much sums up the logistics side of earlier arguments I've made, how the IJA tends to push ahead on fumes and fairy dust and if they hit serious opposition things tend to unravel due to piss poor coordination and in depth planning unless you've got someone with real skill at the helm. Even then...
I even pointed out the Guadalcanal withdrawal was unique in being so successful.
But before then the Japanese lost more men to starvation than to battle, so no big variation from the New Guinea experience there. As I have pointed out before, Japanese logistics suck. And that's an understatement the size of Eurasia.
And I also pointed out, even STRESSED, that Banzai charges were indeed acts of last ditch desperation by cornered forces facing defeat and no way out, as you said, not a typical tactic as in popular imagination. That was the point of part of the post.
The attack on Henderson Field I used as an example of a typically screwed up overly complex nighttime by uncoordinated forces that fell apart and was also NOT a Banzai attack. That was part of the point of it as an example, but in many movies and other popular media (since several Medals of Honor were won in these attacks) these assaults often portrayed as a Banzai attack.
"Just because the Japanese are yelling "banzai" when they charge doesn't make it a Banzai charge," as my granduncle once told me. He'd known as he was there. His main observation, actually, was that indeed they'd often press the assault past any point of common sense. just get chewed up until someone finally got a clue and called a withdrawal.
We now know this is because the junior officers especially were often terrified of losing face by admitting failure or that they couldn't achieve success with the resources given, especially with the aid of the Yamato Spirit to compensate. To admit failure is beyond shame and to lose face. It took a superior officer with flexibility and imagination, like Yamashita or Tanaka, to allow their subordinate officers to fail so as to find other solutions to problems. But they were few and far between, I agree.

 

[Cryhavoc101]

I read in Eagle vs. The Sun, I think, the thoughts of an IJA soldier. He watched an assault by US soldiers and admired the tactic. Thrust and parry. Maneuver and withdraw. Another feint to test the remaining defensive strength. Thrust and parry. Rinse and repeat until their position was overcome.

It was quite instructive as he watched as his fellow soldiers drifted from early enthusiasm into fatalism over the next several days.
He reported his observation up his chain of command. The American's advance then retreat was a battle tactic for success which could be ably applied by the IJA. He received a curt dismissal for going against Bushido. It worked for hundreds of years. Why mess with past success.

Kind like Passchendaele. Surely another 10,000 chests and we will prevail.

The Banzai charge was the same tactic that had worked for various army’s for a long time.

Take losses now to save even more losses later

WW1 had pretty much beaten it out of the Europeans

However with a few notable exceptions the tactic had served the Japanese well in their battles in China.

In Malaya and Philippines they knew that the western powers had a lot of firepower and so mainly used infiltration tactics and often combined arms tactics such as the defeat of 2 commonwealth brigades at slim river.

At Henderson airfield they had no choice but to make a frontal assault having little to no artillery (15 guns to the marines 40 odd) and having for the most part marched through the jungle man packing everything they were short of food and ammunition for an extended fight.

Critically they had seriously underestimated the strength of the US forces (they thought no more than 10000 men when it was 23000) and with the exception of the kicking the Australian forces had given them in PNG had not gone up against very good and well armed troops before.

So the use of Banzai, which is an attempt to overwhelm the enemy at a single point using a rapid assault to defeat the enemy, in their experience should have worked.

However terrain, weather, stronger and better opposition than expected, not to mention lots of artillery resulted in the tactic failing.

Another good example is Alligator Creek, where the Marines used a large number of automatic weapons and the Australian Army’s 39th Battalions and other units of the Australian armys victory at Kokoda through a mix of heavy firepower and their own use of ‘Rapid assault’ (the Aussies seemingly every bit as fond of the bayonet as their Japanese enemy) secured victory.

A good in depth video lecture of the last action is one by Hypohystericalhistory which can be found on YouTube.

His other videos on the battles of this time are excellent.

 

[Fatboy Coxy]

Woo Hoo, some great chat here guys, I'm loving it.

So.... the "old" airfields near Singapore get nice concrete all-weather runways and the "new" airfields neat the Thai border keep their dirt runways.
You really don't like the Japanese this Tl, do you..

Grass duckie, not dirt, and it's cut pretty often too! might have had lines like a football pitch when seen from the air.

 

[Fatboy Coxy]

And the British won't? There is a very definite limit to what the Japanese can deploy and supply ( 1 railway and two small ports mean 3 divisions in the field max ) , simply put if the Japanese don't win quick they get ground down ( as long as Singapore is active , subs will be wrecking havoc on shipping and reinforcements keep coming) and pushed back.

pjmidd, your displaying some very good logistical insight here

 

[Fatboy Coxy]

Fatboy Coxy,
Just holding Malaya and Burma was a key part in a scenario I did. I would look to the https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sinking_of_Prince_of_Wales_and_Repulse for inspiration. Imagine what it would take for that sinking not to happen.

I am glad that you are open to suggestion. It will make things more enjoyable for everyone, especially you.

The Laughing Hyenas

The Prince of Wales, well Force Z really, is a subject that will have a lot of attention closer to the time, hold your horses on that one.

I am very open to suggestions, but a lot of this is one way, I don't want to provide too many spoilers for you all, but thank you all, keep them coming.

 

[Fatboy Coxy]

Oh, I don't disagree with any of this, I just think that the IJA will sacrifice or freeze other fronts to concentrate on Malaya and the East Indies as they were considered the real prizes. Utterly vital. After all, the oil was the point and Singapore was the choke point for that oil. Though yeah, they're going to have to shuffle a lot of decks to make it happen and it's going to be a bit of a race as the Allies build up elsewhere

Of course, assuming my timeline does get off to a good start, how the Japanese react is a most interesting point, and one which as things progress, will become more fundamental to the timeline. I won't ask for any thoughts on that yet, but will do once the fighting starts.

 

[duckie]

Woo Hoo, some great chat here guys, I'm loving it.


Grass duckie, not dirt, and it's cut pretty often too! might have had lines like a football pitch when seen from the air.

And what happens to the grass with heavy use and hight tempratures, followed with very heavy rains......

 

[Fatboy Coxy]

And in 1942 the Allies lacked the basic doctrine to defeat the Japanese in Jungle Warfare. It wasn't until 1944 that the British forces in Burma could outfight the Japanese.

Thanks for mentioning this Belisarius II, its another interesting point. The Australians and Americans seem to develop tactics and doctrine to counter the Japanese a lot quicker than the British-Indian army in Burma-India. I have some thoughts on that, but would be interested to know what other people think.

Because of the changes in the timeline, the battles on land won't be exactly as they were, which is why I'm interested in what happened historically in Burma, Papua-New Guinea and Guadalcanal, with regard to tactics and condition that they fought through.

 

[Fatboy Coxy]

And what happens to the grass with heavy use and hight tempratures, followed with very heavy rains......

Well of course it grows even quicker!

Yes the distinction between hard, ie concrete runways, and the soft ones, grass, packed earth etc, will have a part to play in air force operations for both sides